0 registered
and 7 anonymous users online.
|
|
|
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
|
7
|
8
|
9
|
10
|
11
|
12
|
13
|
|
14
|
15
|
16
|
17
|
18
|
19
|
20
|
|
21
|
22
|
23
|
24
|
25
|
26
|
27
|
|
28
|
29
|
30
|
31
|
|
|
|
|
|
#156933 - 10/10/07 03:49 PM
Re: Another Glittering Jewel
[Re: Hot Carl]
|
hfc
Member
Registered: 05/18/02
Posts: 1378
Loc: NJ
|
Offline
|
|
I actually think when Hillary wins, it's going to be basically the same as Bush except she'll spread some money to the middle class rather to just the rich. He just set the groundwork for a large expansion of domestic spying on Americans. Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I think the whole we need to spy on Americans that talk to foreign terrorists is just to get our feet wet. Next time a Oklahoma City bombing happens, I think they'll have the law modified to spy on American --> American calls without oversite. The lack of oversite is my main problem with this, the FISA court is there to oversee the process. Is applying for a warrant after the fact too much work? Who watches the watchers? If we can put a webcam with sound in the Whitehouse and listen to all of the Congresspeople's phone calls, then I probably wouldn't mind so much.
You shouldn't make this a Democrat vs Republician issue because they all want the same power. I doubt that if a Democrat win's in November that they'll change any of Bush's law because now they got the power...and that's the true test. Would you vote a law in today that your enemy will use against you tomorrow?
_________________________
Hippies. They're everywhere. They wanna save the earth, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad. -Cartman
No good deed goes unpunished.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#156983 - 10/25/07 05:34 PM
Re: Another Glittering Jewel
[Re: Hot Carl]
|
Hot Carl
Member
Registered: 03/31/05
Posts: 3482
Loc: Hoboken, NJ
|
|
Offline
|
|
HAVE YOU HUGGED AN ISLAMO-FASCIST TODAY? by Ann Coulter October 24, 2007 College liberals are in a fit of pique because various speakers are coming to their campuses this week as part of David Horowitz's Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week -- not to be confused with Islamo-Fascism Appreciation Week, which I believe is in April. Apparently liberals support Islamo-fascism. The Democratic leadership might want to have a powwow with their base because I believe their public position is to pretend to oppose Islamic fascism. Elected Democrats at least make empty rhetorical gestures about opposing Islamic fascism. Of course, amidst their nonspecific condemnations of Islamic terrorism, they make very specific demands that we genuflect before Islam and perform exotic fetishes on the fascists. Liberals believe in burning the American flag, urinating on crucifixes, and passing out birth control pills to 11-year-olds without telling their parents -- but God forbid an infidel touch a Quran at Guantanamo.
College campuses across the nation are installing foot baths to accommodate Muslims' daily bathing ritual, while surgically removing the Ten Commandments from every public space in America. Maybe the Ten Commandments could be printed on towels and kept next to the foot baths.
The National Council for Social Studies recommended a lesson plan after 9/11 that included a story titled "My Name Is Osama" about a nasty little white boy, "Todd," who taunts a fine upstanding Iraqi immigrant named "Osama." Go ahead, laugh it up -- we'll see who's laughing when "My Name Is Osama" ends up on ABC's prime-time lineup next year.
This story was proposed in response to an event in which Muslims with names like "Osama" committed the most massive hate crime in U.S. history against 3,000 innocent civilians with names like "Todd." Still and all, Democrats who seek the votes of their fellow Americans continue to claim in a vague, meaningless way to oppose Islamo-fascism. And then when speakers like Cyrus Nowrasteh, the writer and producer of the ABC miniseries "The Path to 9/11," and Nonie Darwish, whose father founded the Fedayeen, show up on college campuses to criticize Islamic terrorism, the Democratic base threatens to riot. The only thing that makes the cut-and-run crowd mad enough to fight is the idea that someone, somewhere might be criticizing radical Islam. Consequently, the speakers for Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week require the sort of security phalanx one would expect for someone more like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Oh wait -- no. Ahmadinejad was cheered by college students a few weeks ago -- at least until he expressed reservations about sodomy. (On the basis of Ahmadinejad's claims, instead of looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, how about we start looking for gays in Iran?) Even American intellectuals like Dennis Prager and Michael Medved who are speaking during Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week are denounced by liberals as if they were David Duke. One pro-Islamo-fascism Web site indicts Medved on the grounds that he "has claimed that Islam has a 'special violence problem.'" It doesn't get much more diplomatic than that. Conservative speakers are constantly being physically attacked on college campuses -- including Bill Kristol, Pat Buchanan, David Horowitz and me, among others. Fortunately the attackers are Democrats, so they throw like girls and generally end up with their noses bloodied by pretty college coeds. But that doesn't make it right. Michael Moore can waddle anywhere he wants in America without fear of violence from Republicans. But we still have to hear about every testy e-mail Paul Krugman ever receives as if liberals are living in the black night of fascism. Any time Krugman wants to get into a "Most Vicious Hate Mail" contest, just say the word. You don't hear me sniffling. Congressional Democrats are constantly calling for conservative private citizens to be silenced. Even Democratic candidates for president and their wives are getting in on the act. A few weeks ago, in the midst of Senate Democrats' demand that Rush Limbaugh's microphone be silenced, Lizzie Edwards distracted herself from the latest National Enquirer by announcing on Air America that Limbaugh's draft deferment was phony. I was pretty shocked. Who knew Air America was still on the air? I know every time Democrats call for me to be silenced, I feel a delicious surge of martyrdom. For a brief moment, I understand the thrill the left gets by going around claiming to be victimized all the time. I could almost imagine a poem: First they came for Rush Limbaugh, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't Rush Limbaugh; And then they came for Ann Coulter, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't Ann Coulter; And then they came for David Horowitz, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't David Horowitz; And then ... they came for me ... And by that time there was no one left to speak up. Liberals claim to be terrified that the Religious Right is going to take over the culture in a country where more than a million babies are exterminated every year, kindergarteners can be expelled from school for mentioning God, and Islamic fascists are welcomed on college campuses while speakers opposed to Islamic fascism are met with angry protests. If liberals want to face real fascism, try showing up on a college campus and denouncing fascism.
COPYRIGHT 2007 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
4520 Main Street, Kansas City, MO 64111
Edited by Hot Carl (10/25/07 05:37 PM)
_________________________
"A completely magical bend of enchanting scents and flavors, with a hint of cupcakes."
-- Britney Spears on her new fragrance "Fantasy Britney Spears"
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#156990 - 10/29/07 05:59 PM
Re: Another Glittering Jewel
[Re: Hot Carl]
|
hfc
Member
Registered: 05/18/02
Posts: 1378
Loc: NJ
|
|
Offline
|
|
Some nice points about Rudy Giuliani.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/29/opinio...agewanted=print
October 29, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Fearing Fear Itself
By PAUL KRUGMAN
In America’s darkest hour, Franklin Delano Roosevelt urged the nation not to succumb to “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror.” But that was then.
Today, many of the men who hope to be the next president — including all of the candidates with a significant chance of receiving the Republican nomination — have made unreasoning, unjustified terror the centerpiece of their campaigns.
Consider, for a moment, the implications of the fact that Rudy Giuliani is taking foreign policy advice from Norman Podhoretz, who wants us to start bombing Iran “as soon as it is logistically possible.”
Mr. Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary and a founding neoconservative, tells us that Iran is the “main center of the Islamofascist ideology against which we have been fighting since 9/11.” The Islamofascists, he tells us, are well on their way toward creating a world “shaped by their will and tailored to their wishes.” Indeed, “Already, some observers are warning that by the end of the 21st century the whole of Europe will be transformed into a place to which they give the name Eurabia.”
Do I have to point out that none of this makes a bit of sense?
For one thing, there isn’t actually any such thing as Islamofascism — it’s not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn’t. And Iran had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 — in fact, the Iranian regime was quite helpful to the United States when it went after Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan.
Beyond that, the claim that Iran is on the path to global domination is beyond ludicrous. Yes, the Iranian regime is a nasty piece of work in many ways, and it would be a bad thing if that regime acquired nuclear weapons. But let’s have some perspective, please: we’re talking about a country with roughly the G.D.P. of Connecticut, and a government whose military budget is roughly the same as Sweden’s.
Meanwhile, the idea that bombing will bring the Iranian regime to its knees — and bombing is the only option, since we’ve run out of troops — is pure wishful thinking. Last year Israel tried to cripple Hezbollah with an air campaign, and ended up strengthening it instead. There’s every reason to believe that an attack on Iran would produce the same result, with the added effects of endangering U.S. forces in Iraq and driving oil prices well into triple digits.
Mr. Podhoretz, in short, is engaging in what my relatives call crazy talk. Yet he is being treated with respect by the front-runner for the G.O.P. nomination. And Mr. Podhoretz’s rants are, if anything, saner than some of what we’ve been hearing from some of Mr. Giuliani’s rivals.
Thus, in a recent campaign ad Mitt Romney asserted that America is in a struggle with people who aim “to unite the world under a single jihadist Caliphate. To do that they must collapse freedom-loving nations. Like us.” He doesn’t say exactly who these jihadists are, but presumably he’s referring to Al Qaeda — an organization that has certainly demonstrated its willingness and ability to kill innocent people, but has no chance of collapsing the United States, let alone taking over the world.
And Mike Huckabee, whom reporters like to portray as a nice, reasonable guy, says that if Hillary Clinton is elected, “I’m not sure we’ll have the courage and the will and the resolve to fight the greatest threat this country’s ever faced in Islamofascism.” Yep, a bunch of lightly armed terrorists and a fourth-rate military power — which aren’t even allies — pose a greater danger than Hitler’s panzers or the Soviet nuclear arsenal ever did.
All of this would be funny if it weren’t so serious.
In the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration adopted fear-mongering as a political strategy. Instead of treating the attack as what it was — an atrocity committed by a fundamentally weak, though ruthless adversary — the administration portrayed America as a nation under threat from every direction.
Most Americans have now regained their balance. But the Republican base, which lapped up the administration’s rhetoric about the axis of evil and the war on terror, remains infected by the fear the Bushies stirred up — perhaps because fear of terrorists maps so easily into the base’s older fears, including fear of dark-skinned people in general.
And the base is looking for a candidate who shares this fear.
Just to be clear, Al Qaeda is a real threat, and so is the Iranian nuclear program. But neither of these threats frightens me as much as fear itself — the unreasoning fear that has taken over one of America’s two great political parties.
_________________________
Hippies. They're everywhere. They wanna save the earth, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad. -Cartman
No good deed goes unpunished.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#156991 - 10/29/07 08:17 PM
Re: Another Glittering Jewel
[Re: hfc]
|
Katie_Scarlett
Member
Registered: 01/21/05
Posts: 8572
Loc: Clayton County
|
|
Offline
|
|
Terrorism scares me... but so does communism.
Edwards plans big for presidency
Candidate: Sacrifice must be priority, too
link
By LAUREN R. DORGAN
Monitor staff
October 26. 2007 1:25AM
Picture
DAN HABIB / Monitor staff
John Edwards
Zoom
Purchase Photos Online
John Edwards says if he's elected president, he'll institute a New Deal-like suite of programs to fight poverty and stem growing wealth disparity. To do it, he said, he'll ask many Americans to make sacrifices, like paying higher taxes.
Edwards, a former Democratic senator from North Carolina, says the federal government should underwrite universal pre-kindergarten, create matching savings accounts for low-income people, mandate a minimum wage of $9.50 and provide a million new Section 8 housing vouchers for the poor. He also pledged to start a government-funded public higher education program called "College for Everyone."
"It is central to what I want to do as president to do something about economic inequality. I do not believe it is okay for the United States of America to have 37 million people living in poverty," he said in a meeting with Monitor reporters and editors this week. "And I think we need, desperately need, a president who will say that to America and call on Americans to show their character."
At every stop, Edwards said, he tells voters he'll ask them to sacrifice. Asked to describe what he means, he described his plan for increases in capital gains taxes, saying taxes on "wealth income" should be in line with those on work income.
"I think if we want to fund the things that I think are important to share in prosperity, then people who have done well in this country, including me, have more of a responsibility to give back," he said. Later, he added: "There are no free meals."[my edit: UNLESS YOU DON'T WORK, then they'll be provided to you."]
Like other Democrats, Edwards named his top three priorities as ending the war in Iraq, enacting universal health care and overhauling the American energy system. "Those are three things instantly I would do," he said.
Edwards also ripped fellow Democrat Sen. Hillary Clinton, who leads most polls nationally and in New Hampshire by a wide margin, for taking campaign contributions from federal lobbyists and for her recent vote in favor of naming Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group. Edwards barely mentioned Sen. Barack Obama.
Both Edwards and Clinton have proposed universal health care plans that mandate insurance for everyone, while Obama has proposed a plan that requires coverage only for children. Edwards, who was first to propose a plan, called Clinton's a "carbon copy" of his but said he is better positioned to negotiate because he has the "clean hands of not taking money from lobbyists."
"Senator Clinton has over the years has taken millions of dollars from lobbyists and defends the status quo system," he said. "She just basically says the system works and her argument is, 'I'm experienced, I can operate within the system.' "
Clinton spokeswoman Kathleen Strand questioned the line Edwards has drawn. He takes money from state lobbyists and from a variety of industry groups; according to a Washington Post roundup, he's taken more than $8 million this year from lawyers and law firms, including some that also employ lobbyists.
"It is disappointing that instead of taking the opportunity to lay out his ideas to New Hampshire voters, John Edwards is consistently choosing to engage in misleading, desperate attacks against Senator Clinton," Strand said.
Edwards called the Iran vote made by Clinton and others "a signal" to President Bush about what's permissible.
"Are we going to hear six months from now, Bush invades Iran, 'If only I had known then what I know now?' " Edwards said. "How long does it take to learn this lesson? There's a very hard lesson that I've had to learn from Iraq."
As a senator, Edwards voted to authorize the war in Iraq, as did Clinton. Since then, Edwards has apologized and called the vote a mistake, while Clinton has not, saying that she "takes responsibility" for her vote and she would end the war. Edwards has often criticized Clinton for stopping short of an apology.
Edwards said he would pull combat troops out of Iraq within 10 months, while leaving behind a strike force in the region and limited troops in Iraq with missions like protecting the American embassy. He said it's impossible to predict the future of the country.
"No one knows what's going to happen in Iraq. We're in a bad place, the choices are ugly," he said. And we have to make the best choices under the circumstances to maximize the chances for success, but there are enormous risks in Iraq. And a lot of it is out of our hands."
Edwards billed himself as a "rare combination": The most progressive of the major candidates as well as "the most electable." He pointed to the fact that he was elected to the Senate from a "red state" and that he comes from a rural area, two factors that he said prove his electability.
Edwards said the time has passed for "poll-driven, careful, cautious ideas."
"I think you have to say, 'There's something rotten in Denmark,' " he said. "The system needs to be fixed."
------ End of article
By LAUREN R. DORGAN
Monitor staff
_________________________
Fahrvergnügen
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#156992 - 10/30/07 12:49 PM
Re: Another Glittering Jewel
[Re: hfc]
|
Hot Carl
Member
Registered: 03/31/05
Posts: 3482
Loc: Hoboken, NJ
|
|
Offline
|
|
The next intelligent thing I read from Krugman will be the first. This guy's Yale BA, & MIT Ph.D. which makes him the most educated idiot in the world.
The danger from the Middle East is so real and so eminent that FRANCE voted conservative. FREAKIN' FRANCE gets it & Krugman STILL thinks we're over reacting!
Websters defines fascism as:
1: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control <early instances of army fascism and brutality
Krugman's an ignorant tool of the left who will sell his country down the river for the sake of the great liberal vision of what the world ought to be, forsaking reality at any and every turn. Does he really miss what Iran says every time their leaders open their mouths? I can't even imagine that MoveOn.org agrees with what this dope writes.
He further writes:
Yes, the Iranian regime is a nasty piece of work in many ways, and it would be a bad thing if that regime acquired nuclear weapons.
Thanks for posting this HFC. Krugman brilliantly illustrates the essence of the Glittering Jewel thread. He's a tour de force, really.
_________________________
"A completely magical bend of enchanting scents and flavors, with a hint of cupcakes."
-- Britney Spears on her new fragrance "Fantasy Britney Spears"
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#156993 - 10/30/07 02:51 PM
Re: Another Glittering Jewel
[Re: Hot Carl]
|
hfc
Member
Registered: 05/18/02
Posts: 1378
Loc: NJ
|
|
Offline
|
|
Yep, you are right. From now on, I will only post Ann Coulter articles because she knows what's best.
I don't think it matters anyway in the long run, we are doomed. The media has pretty much decided that Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani will be the two front-runners in 2008. I'd love to be wrong, but I believe that's it. There is too much money and power behind them that want to keep the status quo. I'm still holding out for Ross Perot to make a comeback.
And KS..not to nit pick, but the roads, the gas, and the airline industry are all subsidized too. What's wrong with health-care? Either take the money out of my taxes or out of my after-tax paycheck. At least the government won't cancel my insurance.
_________________________
Hippies. They're everywhere. They wanna save the earth, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad. -Cartman
No good deed goes unpunished.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#156994 - 10/30/07 06:53 PM
Re: Another Glittering Jewel
[Re: hfc]
|
Katie_Scarlett
Member
Registered: 01/21/05
Posts: 8572
Loc: Clayton County
|
|
Offline
|
|
And KS..not to nit pick, but the roads, the gas, and the airline industry are all subsidized too. What's wrong with health-care? Either take the money out of my taxes or out of my after-tax paycheck. At least the government won't cancel my insurance.
I tend to believe that subsidized health care is substandard health care. There's a reason that citizens of other countries come here for their health care.
In addition to that, I really really believe that instead of raising taxes, the government ought to examine where the money they have now is going and cut pork barrel spending!
_________________________
Fahrvergnügen
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
Moderator: Furey
|
